As much as symmetry and the mighty dollar, the reason baseball seasons are 162 games long is players like J.D. Martinez.

There will be highs like his first three weeks, which were probably a lie, and lows like his last three weeks, which also were probably a lie.

Life as a ballplayer is a series of corrections, both self-imposed and probability-imposed, and for Martinez, the latest correction was to a 6-for-57 slump he had been riding since April 28.

Martinez hit the go-ahead triple on a bloop down the right-field line and finished 3-for-4 with three RBIs as the Astros swept the Chicago Cubs with a 5-1 victory Wednesday night at Minute Maid Park.

It was the Astros’ third sweep of the year, all at home, where they possess a 16-10 record after just finishing off a 6-2 homestand.

“I feel about the same comfort-wise,” Martinez said. “I just wasn’t missing pitches tonight. In the past, I felt like I was fouling those pitches off, and I just wasn’t doing that tonight.”

To Martinez, it was just a correction in his statistics, which now read .235 with a .342 on-base percentage and a .356 slugging percentage. It has been a lot of hard work to get out of the slump with extra batting practice as he tries to get his swing shorter and improve his plate discipline.

Corrections even took place within the game. Martinez’s first swing might have been his best of the game, but it resulted in just a fly out to center field. But that’s why seasons are 600 at-bats long.

His next one came in a key spot, with the Astros trailing 1-0 with two outs in the fourth inning and Carlos Lee and Chris Johnson on with singles. Martinez popped Jeff Samardzija’s 1-0 offering down the right-field line. Right fielder David DeJesus and second baseman Darwin Barney converged near the line, and neither could come up with it, sending Martinez on a 270-foot sprint as both were shaken up. The triple gave the Astros a 2-1 lead.

It made a winner of Wandy Rodriguez (4-4), who didn’t even need the three runs the Astros scored against a wild Rafael Dolis in the eighth. Rodriguez used one of baseball’s best curveballs to hold the Cubs to a run on eight hits in seven innings despite consistently being in and out of trouble.

“I didn’t feel very good with my fastball today,” he said. “I used a lot of my breaking ball because I didn’t have a good (fastball) tonight.”

Still, Rodriguez lowered his ERA to 2.14 and was part of a happy postgame clubhouse, in large part because of Martinez.

“That’s what I expect out of myself, just to come out and hit the ball hard,” Martinez said after his second straight game with the go-ahead hit. “(Tuesday and Wednesday), I was able to put myself in good positions and good counts to do that.”

Martinez may not be a .340 hitter, but he’s certainly not a .105 hitter. And that’s why this sport requires a little more than 16 games.

zachary.levine@chron.com
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Astros 5, Cubs 1

Tipping point: J.D. Martinez placed his two-on, two-out blooper down the line perfectly in the top of the fourth as no fielder could get to it. The result was a triple that flipped a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.

On the mound: Wandy Rodriguez lowered his ERA to 2.14 with a night that didn’t feature his best stuff but was enough against a lineup that absolutely cannot hit lefthanded pitching. The Cubs are now 1-8 in games when the opposition starts a lefty.

At the plate: Carlos Lee got his average back over .300 with a three-hit night including the single that got the rally started. The Astros’ final two runs in a mess of an eighth inning for the Cubs came on a bases-loaded walk and hit-by-pitch

Under the radar: While the Cubs made their own mess of an admittedly difficult play down the right field line, Travis Buck had no troubles in right, save for a play on which he broke back and recovered barely in time, he made multiple smooth running catches on an adventurous night in place of Brian Bogusevic, who slid over to center for the injured Jordan Schafer.